


Life's Not Fair, Princess

by FolieEyDude



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-05 23:11:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6727288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FolieEyDude/pseuds/FolieEyDude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhiannon has been surviving in the woods with her companion, Hadley, for over a year, fighting off the Dead alone, until one day, she meets a stranger while tracking a deer. Rated M for future content.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Rhiannon’s breathing was getting ragged and her legs were growing sore. Hadley, her yellow lab, was still ahead of her, weaving between the trees and the late afternoon sunbeams. A herd of Dead had overrun Rhiannon’s last campsite and there were too many to fight, so they ran. Glancing behind her, she couldn’t see them anymore and whistled for Hadley to stop. Digging a bowl and some water out of her pack, Rhiannon knelt down to offer it to her dog. Hadley had been her loyal companion since a year and a half before the world had ended, and had stayed faithfully by her side when everyone else abandoned her or died.

Hearing a crunch of leaves and twigs about twenty feet from them, both Rhiannon and Hadley froze and looked up. One of the Dead stumbled through a bush and fell against a tree, turning and bumping against another tree. Silently, Rhiannon stood up and pulled her favorite knife out of her belt. With a flick of her wrist it flew through the air and sunk into the Dead one’s brain and it slumped to the forest floor with a thump.

“Come on, Had,” she whispered, packing up the water and retrieving her knife. “Let’s keep moving.”

Dawn was creeping over the branches that Rhiannon and Hadley had settled in for the night. Rhiannon’s back was sore since she gave Hadley the hammock they had salvaged from an abandoned warehouse a few weeks ago. The dog wasn’t smart enough to hold on to a tree branch, so once Rhiannon hauled her up the tree, she tied her into the hammock to keep her safe through the night. Looking down, she saw the herd they had run from the day before. They were slow, marching and stumbling along under the two of them, unaware of the feast hiding twenty feet above their heads. Rhiannon held her breath and settled back against the tree she was sitting in, waiting to see how long until they were gone.

Once it had been an hour since she’d seen any of the Dead, she started the slow, arduous task of packing up their sleeping arrangement and lowering them to the ground.

“What’s the plan, Hads?” Rhiannon had taken up talking to her dog. She hadn’t seen another living human in about a year. At least she thought it was a year, she’d lost count and was mostly judging based on the seasons.

The herd was going North, so Rhiannon turned to the East and started walking. She was hoping to find a car or a store today, somewhere to store up on supplies and maybe camp out for a few days before trying again to make her way to New England, where her sister might be.

It was close to midday when she heard it, a rustling to the south. She’d been tracking the deer for only a short time and was feeling pleased with herself. Crouching, she saw Hadley in pointe position, her tail out straight, her front paw lifted up. Drawing a knife out of her boot, she moved to get a better view of the animal. When she could see it properly, she started to move towards it, hoping to sneak up on it. It’d been months since she’d had fresh meat and her mouth was already salivating thinking about how good the deer would taste.

Before she got close enough, the deer shot up, staring right at her when an arrow came from the East and shot straight through the deer’s eye and into it’s brain. The animal fell while Rhiannon stood up straight, looking to see where the arrow had come from. Hadley ran to sniff at the deer and Rhiannon saw a man, with long dark hair in khakis and a sleeveless vest, raise a cross bow and aim it at her dog.

“Hey!!!” she shouted out without thinking, sprinting to stand in front of her only friend. “Put that down!”

Lowering the crossbow, the man was staring at her in shock. “Who the hell’r you?!” he asked, walking towards her, his southern accent peaked with agitation.

“I can’t believe you would shoot my DOG!” Rhiannon yelled at him, too mad to hear anything. She and Hadley had nearly died for each other before, but always when they were scrapping for their lives, clawing at survival, and every time, the thought of losing the last vestige of her life before the Dead Ones happened scared her terribly.

“How was I supposed to know she weren’t some feral stray?” he snapped at her, only a few feet away now.

“She has! A COLLAR!!!”  
“That don’t mean nothin’! Plenty a people died ‘fore they could take their dumb collars off a their dumb dogs,” he said, gesturing toward Hadley, who was standing behind you, the fur raised on her back, her ears flattened and her teeth slightly bared.

“She’s MY DOG! She’s not stray! She’s not feral! Just leave us alone!”

“FINE!” he snapped again. “Just let me get my deer and I’ll be gone.”

“Your deer?” Rhiannon replied. “No, I don’t think so, you stole this animal, she was gonna be mine!”

“No way! That’s my arrow in it’s brain, in’t it?” he walked around you and yanked the arrow out of the animals skull, wiping it clean on his pants before putting it back in his crossbow.

“I’ve been tracking her for a while, she’s mine, that’s not fair,” she said, wincing internally at how whiny she knew she sounded.

“Life ain’t fair, princess,” he replied, lifting the deer over his shoulders and starting to walk back the way he had come from.

Weighing her options, Rhiannon felt defeated. She couldn’t fight him, she wasn’t going to try to tug the deer off his shoulders, and she knew she couldn’t physically stand up to him. She was deflated at having lost such an opportunity, so she sank to her knees by Hadley and just started to cry. She didn’t mean to, she hadn’t cried in months, but she was so exhausted, and fried, and having hope snatched away from her fingertips like that was too much, so she buried her face in Hadley’s fur and sobbed.

After a minute she heard the man’s voice again, sounding irritated, “How many walkers you killed?”

Surprised, Rhiannon wiped her face and looked up at him. He was standing beside her, the deer still on his shoulders, and looking at her with an expression she couldn’t read. “What?” she asked.

“Said how many walkers you killed, girl?”

Taking a breath and standing up to face him, she answered, “No idea. Too many to count. I lost count after the first few months.”

He grunted a response and then asked, “How many people you killed.”

Swallowing, Rhiannon thought back to the two worst nights of her life. “Four.”

“Why?” he asked immediately, staring right into her eyes.

Rhiannon blanched, weighing whether or not she should admit to him the reason why she took the lives of the one man she loved and three men she hated, but after a minute she just sighed and said “Because I had to.”

The man just grunted again and ran his eyes over her and glanced at Hadley again. Then he said “We got a safe zone. Yer by yerself right? Just you an yer mutt?”

“She’s not a mutt!!” Rhiannon barked, and then, softer “but yes, it’s us. Just us. You have a safe zone? Who’s we? Where is it? How many-“

He raised a hand to cut her off, shifting the weight of the deer across his shoulders. “Yer askin too many of the wrong questions. You wanna come wit me or naw? You can ask questions there.”

Rhiannon looked at him and nodded. A safe zone sounded better than another night in the trees.

“ ‘M Daryl,” he mumbled before turning and walking away again.

“Rhiannon,” she replied, jogging slightly to catch up to him. “And this is Hadley. She’s not a mutt.”

The sun was setting by the time you reached the safe zone with Daryl. He had barely said a word the whole time and wouldn’t answer any of the questions you asked him. Even when you offered to help carry the deer he just grunted at you and kept walking. Hadley had been sniffing at him and at the deer periodically and weaving in front of him. She seemed to like Daryl but he seemed to be annoyed by her, which only served to annoy Rhiannon. The only information she’d managed to pry out of him was that the place they were going was called Alexandria, and that she’d have to talk to a man named Rick when they got there.

As the large gate loomed in front of her, sliding open, Rhiannon suddenly felt nervous. This place looked very secure but also hard to escape if she wanted to leave. How would she get Hadley over the walls? What if these people weren’t safe to be around? She hadn’t encountered people in a long time, and the last time she did, it had gone horribly. She had believed there weren’t any good people left, but something in her gut had told her to trust Daryl. Now she wasn’t so sure her guy had made the right decision.

Inside the gate, a tall, burly man with bright red hair had pulled it shut and eyed her up and down. “Who’s the dog?” he asked Daryl, who ignored him and just kept walking.

Making the decision to try to make friends, Rhiannon followed Daryl but called back to the man, “Her name’s Hadley! I’m Rhiannon!”

“Abraham!” he yelled back at her before going back to his post watching over the gate.

Daryl kept walking until they got to a house with a front porch, where he set the deer down on the front lawn and motioned for Rhiannon to follow him up the stairs and inside. At the door he stopped and looked at Hadley, obviously questioning whether to let her in the house or not.

“If she stays out here, I stay out here,” Rhiannon told him. He paused for a minute then said “wait ‘ere, then,” and disappeared inside. Standing on the porch with Hadley, Rhiannon looked around at the place they were in. An entire town surrounded by a tall fence, fortified against the Dead and any person they didn’t want to come in. She squeezed her eyes shut and sent out a silent prayer that these would be good people, kind people, smart people, and also that they wouldn’t be allergic to dogs.

A few minutes later Daryl came back outside, behind him was a tall, handsome man. His face was rugged and his dark hair was long. A scruffy beard was clinging to his chiseled jawline, and he looked at her with his thumbs hooked into his belt.

“Hello, Rhiannon,” he said. “I’m Rick. I heard you were out in the woods by yourself?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “It’s just been me and Hadley for a while now,” she gestured towards her dog who had settled down at her feet, glad for a rest.

“How long’s a while?” Rick asked.

“Umm…. Well, basically since almost the beginning,” Rhiannon said, hesitant to tell her whole story, but the way he was looking at her was kind, not malicious. “I think it’s been a year though, since we saw anyone else but the Dead.”

“A year?”

“Yeah, at least I think so.” Her cheeks blushed as she admitted “I’m not really sure of the days or months anymore. I know it’s near summer, and I know it was last spring when we were around people.”

Rick and Daryl were both staring at her, causing her to feel even more embarrassed, so she looked down at the lab laying at her feet for comfort.

“Alright then,” Rick said after a minute. “We can talk more in the morning but for now come in and eat, Maggie’ll get you set up with somewhere to sleep and you can rest,” he extended an arm towards the door, but before she went in Rhiannon said “I can help. With the deer, and I got my own food, I don’t mean to come in and take your food, Rick. I ain’t a mooch, I –“ he cut her off before she could finish.

“We don’t take no moochin’ around here, don’t worry, you’ll get to help. But for now, come eat, get cleaned up, and rest. Your dog can come in too,” he smiled at her. A real smile, the first smile she had seen in years. It was so kind tears sprang into Rhiannon’s eyes and before she started crying for the second time in one day she told him “Her name’s Hadley.”


	2. Chapter 2

Rhiannon was sitting in a bright, sunlight kitchen; Hadley curled up on a rug by the door, watching Maggie and Rhiannon as they washed the dishes. It was 7am. The thought made Rhiannon giddy. The watch she had been wearing had stopped working ages ago, and she was surprised by how much she had missed knowing the time, and what the date was. She felt more like a human again.

She had woken up that morning in a bed, with clean sheets, in a house that wasn’t ransacked or broken down. She had taken a warm shower the night before and shaved her legs and spent the whole night rubbing them together under the sheets, savoring the smooth feeling. When she woke up she had tried to find Daryl and the deer from the day before so she could help to skin and preserve it, but she had been intercepted by Maggie, the kind, smiling girl who had brought her to this house and given her new, clean clothes after feeding her a hot meal. So instead of skinning a deer, she was here, in Maggie’s kitchen, washing dishes and laughing. It all felt surreal, like she was going to wake up any minute now and be hanging in a tree, or hiding under a car.

Hadley had gladly adjusted to this place. It had only been one night and she was already back to the dog she was before dead people started walking and eating their loved ones. She had adapted quickly to be Rhiannon’s protector and fellow-hunter, but this is where she belonged, laying on a rug in a beam of sunlight, a belly full of bacon and a full day to do nothing.

While she scrubbed at a plate then handed it to Maggie to rinse and dry, she listened to the girl talking about the different jobs they needed filled, trying to find a good fit for Rhiannon. Glancing out the window, she saw Daryl walking, his arms red with blood up to the elbow.

“Does he always look like that?” she asked. It was a comfort when she realized last night, while they were eating dinner, that Daryl was quiet with everyone, and not just her.

Maggie laughed, “oh yeah. Dirty Daryl,” she smiled as she placed the plate in the cupboard with the others. “He’s pretty scruffy. Has been since I met him, but he’s good.” She went quiet for a moment, her gaze focused on Daryl out the window. “We wouldn’t be here without him.” She sounded sad and Rhiannon decided not to press it and changed the subject.

“So what were you saying about guard duty? I could be good at that. I’m a good hunter, too. Oh and I can handle myself around the Dead, so-“

“You call ‘em that? Dead? You call ‘em the Dead?” Maggie was looking at her funny.

“Er, well, yeah. They’re dead, aren’t they?”

Maggie nodded, “we call ‘em walkers. We call our dead the dead. We honor the dead. We don’t honor the walkers.”

“Oh,” Rhiannon didn’t know how to reply. They must have lost a lot of people. They must have a lot of dead. Rhiannon’s family was all gone, except her sister, and she wasn’t even sure where she was or if she was still alive.

“Well,” Maggie said, interrupting her thoughts and breaking the pall that had fallen over their previously light-hearted conversation. “I still gotta think on where to put you, but Rick said to send you to talk to him. I think he’s still at his house.”

After getting directions to the correct house from Maggie, Rhiannon and Hadley set off to find him. On the way she passed several people, some with weapons, and stern looks, most with no weapons that smiled at her. Last night, after dinner, Rick had asked her to give up her weapons and she had spent about five minutes pulling all the knives out of their various places on her body. She had about ten on her belt, two in each boot, one around her right thigh, a couple under her shirt, sheathed and tucked into her bra, and two larger ones criss-crossed on her back. She felt naked without them, vulnerable, even though Rick had promised she would be safe in Alexandria, and that she would get them back soon. When she reached the house Maggie had described, she was walking up the steps when a teenage boy came barreling out the door. He stopped when he saw her, and tipped his big hat towards her. “I’m Carl,” he said. “You must be Rhiannon?”

“Yeah, that’s me. This is Hadley,” he reached down to pet her on the head.

“I haven’t seen a dog in so long,” he explained. “How did you keep her safe this whole time? Daryl said you were by yourself, you kept her with you?”

“Uh yeah,” Rhiannon replied. “She’s been with me since before….”

Carl spent a few minutes petting Hadley and kissing her before he said he had to go, something about someone named Enid.

Inside, Rhiannon found Rick, Daryl, and Michonne sitting in the living room. Michonne was just as intimidating as she had been at dinner, not saying much, sitting to the left of Rick, but Rhiannon could tell she was evaluating every thing about her. Daryl’s hands were clean of blood but he was still streaked with dirt and sweat, sitting on the other side of Rick, who gestured for her to have a seat across from them. She did and Hadley sat next to her, resting her head in Rhiannon’s lap and Rhiannon placed a hand on top of her head.

“That dog really likes you, huh?” Rick smiled.

Rhiannon smiled back, “we’re buds,” she said. “It’s been the two of us for so long…. We’re all we have, ya know? She kept me safe, I kept her safe. Together we made it out of quite a few tight spots.”

“About that,” Rick said, “We need to know we can trust you. Daryl said you killed four men, ‘cause you had to. I need to know why you had to.”

Swallowing, Rhiannon pet Hadley and thought to herself. She had figured something like this would come up. It was the smart thing to ask, and she appreciated that these people were smart. If she didn’t tell them, they couldn’t trust her, and if they couldn’t trust her, they wouldn’t let her stay, and she desperately wanted to stay here. So she took a deep breath and told them her whole story.

She started at the beginning, when her dad got sick. He had a fever that turned worse and he died before they could get him to the hospital. Her mother had been crying by his bedside all night and Rhiannon was sitting in the corner of the room when she watched her dead father sit up in bed and bite her mother’s neck. The tears were still wet on her cheeks as her blood soaked the bed and Rhiannon ran out of the room, down the stairs and out the front door of her house. Hadley was with her then, and she was with her when she ran to her ex boyfriends house. He had left her for another girl, but he was the only friend she had so she ran to him. They had stuck together, Rhiannon, her ex, and his family in the beginning, but it only took a few months until everyone but Rhiannon and her ex was dead. One night, while scavenging for supplies, she and Hadley had gotten trapped in a small storage room while the Dead swarmed them. She looked up and made eye contact with her ex as he ran out the door. Luckily she had a knife and the Dead were bottlenecking through the door slowly enough that she could take them out. That was when Hadley had taken on the role of protector, biting the Dead Ones in the knees so they would fall and go slower. A week later she found him, hiding in an apartment, with a large chunk of his calf missing, teeth marks rotting the flesh. He begged her to cut off his leg but it had been two days already and the fever had set in, so he begged her to kill him. He didn’t want to wait until he became one of them, so when Rhiannon refused, he took a knife and slit his own throat. She told Rick about how he did it wrong, so he was suffering, bleeding slowly, in agony, so she did it quick, fast, a bullet to the brain. The last bullet she ever fired. She was crying softly remembering it. She could still see his face, feel his soft hair and recall his face as he died. He was the first person who’s life she had taken herself.

“And the other three?” Rick asked, and Rhiannon looked up at him. She had forgotten Daryl and Michonne were there. Michonne looked sad, her eyes full of empathy, and Daryl was still impossible to read, so Rhiannon took a deep breath and continued.

She was alone for a while after that, eventually meeting up with a family who had been on the road. They took her in, she hunted for them, and they gave her company. Until one night, they were camping when three men ambushed them. They tied them up in ropes and gagged them, ransacking their belongings. Rhiannon had already started collecting knives by that point and had one hidden on her which she was using to cut through the ropes while they were distracted. But soon they had taken everything they wanted and turned their attention back to Rhiannon and the people she was with. There was an older father, a mother, and a young boy, about eight years old. The leader of the group shot the boy in between the eyes first, then the mother who was screaming and choking on her gag, and laughed at the father before pulling the trigger on him too. He didn’t shoot Rhiannon though; he pushed her on her back and started to undress her while the others reached to hold her down. Hadley had clamped her jaws down on one of their legs and while he turned to kick her, Rhiannon finally got her hands loose. She reached up and stabbed the man who was looming over her right in the neck. Blood spilled all over her and she could hardly see but she swung her knife around until it made contact with the man on her left. He screamed and she yanked her arm back, pulling the knife out and wiping the blood out of her eyes. She saw that she had stabbed him in the shoulder and the third man was lunging towards her. Sitting up she turned and sank the knife into his eye, and then she pulled it out and cut his throat with it. He sank to the ground, gurgling, and the one she had stabbed was cursing and trying to reach for the gun in his waistband. Rhiannon threw her knife at him and it sank, blade first, into his forehead. She had wanted to stay, to mourn the kind strangers who had taken her in, to bury them properly, but all the screaming and the gunshots had attracted the Dead. She could hear them shuffling through the woods towards her and Hadley, who was limping from being kicked so hard. That was the first night Rhiannon had carried her up a tree on her back, and held her through the night while she slept, too afraid to sleep herself, and too angry and tired to rest even though she desperately wanted to.

“It’s just been me and Hadley since that night, which, I think, was about a year ago” Rhiannon finished, her voice shaking. “I try not to think about it,” she shrugged, looking up at the three strangers who she’d just told about the worst night of her entire life. They were looking at her with pity in their eyes, but something else too. Michonne looked strangely proud of her, Rick looked thoughtful, and Daryl just looked angry like always.

“I’m sorry to make you relive that,” Rick said, “but I appreciate you being honest with us. So your whole family is gone?”

“Uh, no,” she replied. “I have a younger sister, I’ve been trying to get North to see if I can find her, she was visiting our grand parents in New Jersey, but I couldn’t contact her and I have no idea what happened to her. Her name’s Emma, actually, and Hadley was her dog. She brought her home from the shelter one day about a year before the world fell to pieces.”

“Well,” Rick said, “you can stay with us as long as you like. We do ask that you help out.”  
“Of course!” Rhiannon replied, standing up. “I told you I ain’t no mooch. I can do whatever you need me to, I swear.”  
“Alright, alright,” he said, standing up as well. “For now, you can go on a run with Daryl.”


	3. Chapter 3

At first Daryl was reluctant. He told Rick he’d rather go with Glenn, or Sasha, or someone he knew, but Rick was adamant that he take Rhiannon. Feeling awkward, and not wanting to stand there and listen to them argue as if she wasn’t standing right in front of them, she took Hadley outside so she could do her business. It was about ten minutes later when Daryl came storming out the front door.

“Let’s go,” he said. “And you’re leaving that dog here!”

“What?” Rhiannon said, keeping pace with him as he marched towards the house where he was living. “I can’t leave her here, there’s no way.”  
“Can she sit on a bike?” he drawled at her, sarcastically.

“I saw tons of cars here, why can’t we take one of those?”

“Cuz,” he said, lifting the garage door as they reached it.

Rhiannon blanched. “That’s it? ‘Cuz’” she repeated, mimicking his southern drawl. “She hasn’t been without me for years, I can’t just abandon her!”

“Then stay here!” he said, rounding to face her.

Rhiannon wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of getting his way but she didn’t want to leave Hadley with strangers. “Don’t leave yet!” she snapped, turning on her heel and whistling for Hadley to follow her.

Leaving her with Maggie was harder on Rhiannon than it was Hadley. She whined a little when she left but Maggie bribed her with more bacon and she settled down in the same spot she was in that morning. Once Rhiannon had all of her knives back, she met Daryl at the gate. He was sitting on his motorcycle, glaring at her and tapping his foot impatiently.

“Get yer dog a babysitter?”

“Shut up,” Rhiannon retorted. “Haven’t you ever cared about anyone or anything before?”

He didn’t answer her, just motioned for her to get on the back of the bike. When she did he revved the engine and drove through the gates.

Rhiannon hadn’t been on a motorcycle in years. Her dad used to fix them for a living, and he taught Rhiannon how to clean, ride, and maintain them. Her hair was flying in the wind and the breeze was helping to ease her anxiety about leaving Hadley behind. Gradually, all her anxiety faded as she felt the thrum of the engine vibrating the machine under her, the road flying by, her arms around Daryl, a stubborn ass, maybe, but still a living person. As the miles grew behind her, her spirits lifted. Soon they were pulling up to a strip mall, the parking lot littered with abandoned cars, and no Dead in sight.

“I’ve had my eye on this place for a while,” Daryl was saying. “Looks abandoned, probably empty by now but so isn’t everythin’ else ‘round here. There might be walkers in it, so be careful.”  
“I still don’t see why we didn’t bring a car,” Rhiannon replied, dismounting from the bike and slinging two empty backpacks over her shoulder. “We can fit more in a car than in these.”

Daryl just rolled his eyes at her and asked “do you ever shut up?”

“Do you ever stop scowling?”

He just scowled deeper and started checking the cars for any supplies, so Rhiannon followed suit. All they found were a couple packets of jerky, so they headed towards the first store all the way to the right of the strip mall. Daryl rattled the glass doors and waited to see if any of the Dead came out. There was nothing so he opened it and entered, slowly, his crossbow raised. Rhiannon followed him with her knife up.

After a quick sweep of the store they found only one walker, and Daryl took him out with an arrow before Rhiannon could throw her knife. They scanned the store, which was a sporting’s good store, but it had already been ransacked and there was nothing for them to take. Frustrated, they went through the next few stores without any more luck. They managed to get a couple cans of baby formula from the pharmacy, but no medication, and no food.

Rhiannon could see Daryl getting more and more agitated with every store that was empty, but she had hope that the supermarket at the end would be a secret goldmine.

“Be careful,” he said when they walked through the front doors.

“You already said that,” Rhiannon replied. “Like a million times, every store so far.” She rolled her eyes, and shined her flashlight down one of the aisles. “Lets split up, it’ll go faster.”

“That’s ‘bout the dumbest thin’ I ever heard,” he said. “No, lets start here and work our way to the end,” he gestured towards the closest aisle.

“You start there if you like,” she said dismissively, and silently jogged past the cash registers to the frozen foods section. Before she got there, one of the Dead came out of the aisle in front of her, reaching for her throat and knocking the knife out of her hand. She reeled back, putting her right hand out to hold him away from her, and reaching for a knife with her left hand. Her fingers sunk into the rotting flesh of its shoulder and his rank breath washed over her nostrils. As she was pulling the knife out of her belt, her fingers slipped on the rotten flesh of the Dead One and it lunged closer to her, teeth gnashing and almost sinking into her face. She recoiled and slipped backwards and landed on her back, knocking the wind out of her lungs, and its rotting body fell on top of her. She was terrified it would be able to bite her so she scrambled to lift its weight off of her and when she did she saw the arrow that was protruding from its eyebrow, eyes glazed, and mouth hanging open.

Rhiannon blinked and then Daryl was standing over her, hauling the walker’s body off of her.

“That’s the most damn foolish thing I ever saw anyone do!” He was roaring at her, grabbing her by the lapels of her jacket and yanking her to her feet. He was still yelling as he retrieved his arrow and wiped it off. “I told you it was dumb! I told you to stay close, to stick together! I told Rick this was a bad idea! I told you we should go slowly and move together but NO! You went runnin’ off and almost got yer damn head bit off!”

He was spitting out curses and expletives and the noise had caused four more walkers to come out of the aisles and head towards them. He was loading his crossbow and taking them out in between swears and “I told you’s.”

“Are you done yelling at me?!” Rhiannon interrupted him after all the Dead had been taken care of.

“No!” he yelled back but didn’t say anything else. He just silently stalked to each of the bodies and retrieved his arrows, cleaning them and putting them back in the quiver.

Sensing that he wasn’t going to talk to her again, Rhiannon grabbed her backpacks and her flashlight and started stocking up. A lot of the shelves were empty but there were still some useful things. Most of the non-perishable items had been taken, but she managed to fill one pack with canned food and another with things like batteries and first-aid equipment. She turned the corner of the baby food aisle, looking for something to bring back to Rick’s baby she had heard about but still not met, when she saw Daryl. He was walking towards her, but stopped, huffed, and turned around.

“Le’s go,” he mumbled over his shoulder.

Sullenly, Rhiannon followed him, glaring daggers at the stupid angel wings on the back of his vest. Outside, the sunlight was blinding compared to the dusty interior of the supermarket. Rhiannon lifted a hand to shield her eyes as they adjusted and walked into Daryl, who had stopped directly in front of her.

“Ow,” she said, “what’re you doin?” but when she looked around him she saw why he had stopped. A herd of the Dead had flooded the parking lot and were blocking their path to the bike.

“Get back inside,” he said, turning and pushing her towards the doors. “Now!”

The herd was still a good fifty yards away but the ones in front had seen them and were stumbling in their direction. Rhiannon ran back into the supermarket and closed the doors behind Daryl, who started pushing shelves and carts and anything he could find behind them, to create a barricade. Rhiannon immediately started helping, and together they pushed everything that would move into a pile that stopped the doors from opening.

Stepping back, Daryl sighed and said “that ought’a hold ‘til they move on.”

“How long is that going to take?” Rhiannon was thinking about the idea of spending the night in this dusty, abandoned supermarket with this angry, rude, brute of a man, and it scared her. He really didn’t seem to like her.

“It takes as long as it takes, princess!” he turned away and sat down on one of the conveyor belts with the cash registers.

The barricade made it so they couldn’t see the Dead, but they could hear them. It also blocked out almost all of the sunlight that had been filtering through the dirty windows, making it impossible to see without their flashlights.

“Would you stop calling me that,” she said, sinking to the floor in front of the barricade, hoping that the herd would tire quickly and move on so they could leave before it was too dark.

“What, ‘princess?’” he scoffed. “Why’s it bother you so much….. Princess?”

She could tell he was smirking at her and it made her blood boil. “Nevermind,” she said, “did you find any water?”

“Naw, princess. Did you?”

He was laughing which just aggravated her even further. Did he really think this was funny? Was he honestly enjoying this situation right now? She decided to just not talk to him and turned her flashlight off, settling back against the barricade and trying to shut out the noise of the Dead.

She pressed her hands to her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to picture what Hadley was doing back at Alexandria, with Maggie. After a few minutes she was interrupted by Daryl shining his flashlight in her face.

“What’re ye doin’, princess?”

She opened her eyes and dropped her hands to her sides and gave him her best annoyed face. “Do we have to talk?”

“Naw, just wonderin’ why you got yer face all scrunched up like that. You ain’t gonna have a panic attack or nothin’, are ya?”

“No,” she replied, drawing out the word like she was talking to a child.

There was a minute of silence and then he said “awright. Just checkin’”

“Ugh!” Rhiannon was getting irked. “What’s with you? One second you hate me, you’re yelling at me, and then now you’re ‘just checkin’?’ “

“Well I jus gotta make sure you don’t die out here and leave Maggie wit that dog. She already got a kid on the way she don’t need yer dirty mutt to take care of too.”

“She’s not a dirty mutt! She-“

“Look, princess, I’m just makin’ sure you survive. You clearly-“

“Stop! Calling me! Princess!!”

“Shut up!” he growled at her. “You gotta shush or they’re never gonna leave!”

Rhiannon clamped her teeth together and glared at him. Then she whispered at him, “just shut up, okay?”

“Why you get so defensive over that dog, anyway?” he kept talking, so she stood up and walked away from him before she yelled again. Finding a spot on the opposite end of the store from where he was, she sat back down and tried to focus on calming down.

The next thing she knew, Rhiannon was being woken up Daryl shaking her shoulder. “Get up, princess,” he was saying. “It’s time to go.”  
Sitting up and rubbing her eyes, she asked “are they gone?”

“Most of ‘em. We can get to the bike and go, if we’re quiet.”

“Wait, most of ‘em? How long has it been, is the sun down yet?”

“Yeah, it’s dark, but-“

“Is that safe? Is it safe to travel at night?”  
Daryl looked at her, his blue eyes reflecting the light of his flashlight, and said “prob’ly not. But this was sposed to be a quick run, we’re sposed to be back by now.”

“Don’t you think they’ll hear us move all that stuff? I mean, are you sure it’s safe?” Rhiannon’s voice shook a little. She hated moving at night. The dark made her uneasy, she always found somewhere safe and hunkered down once the sun set. She cursed herself for having fallen asleep, she should’ve stayed alert and maybe they could have made a run for it when the sun was still up.

Daryl gave her a look, his expression just as unreadable as always, and slowly nodded. “Awright,” he said after a minute. “We’ll wait here the night.” He sat next to her, and flicked his light off.

“You scared of the dark or something, princess?”

She rolled her eyes and sighed internally, before answering him. “Not the dark. Just the people who hide in it.”


	4. Chapter 4

Rhiannon offered to keep watch so Daryl could sleep, but he just shrugged her off. She couldn’t get back to sleep so they had been sitting in silence for a few hours now. Her back was getting sore so she stood up to stretch. She was bent over, grabbing her ankles to stretch out her back when Daryl’s voice came from behind her.

“What’re ya doin now?”

“Stretching,” she replied.

He flicked his flashlight on and made a face at her. “What’d’ya need to stretch for?”

She pressed her palms and elbows into the floor and raised her legs up to do a handstand before saying “cuz my back hurts.”

“How old are ya, 80?” he scoffed.

“No,” she shot back. “I just get sore sitting in one place too long.”

“Is this yoga?” he asked. The innocence of the question took Rhiannon by surprise and she laughed, which caused her to fall out of her handstand. Lying on the cold tile floor she stared up at the ceiling and laughed.

“Cut it out,” Daryl snapped.

“Sorry,” she sighed, sitting up. “Yeah, I guess that was yoga. I used to do it every day but I never do anymore.”

“Well why would ya?” he squinted at her. He had placed his flashlight on the shelf behind him, casting enough light over the small area where they were sitting.

“Because it’s relaxing. It helps with anxiety, stress, and keeps you in shape, and flexible.”

“Huh,” he replied, but didn’t say anything else.

“If you want, I could teach you,” she offered.

He let out a chuckle. “No way. My body don’t bend that way.”

“It doesn’t have to ‘bend’ any sort of way,” she answered, emphasizing the word “bend.” “You can start out with simple stretches and breathing techniques to reduce stress.”

He just shook his head. “I don’t get stressed.”

“The Dead start walking and trying to eat you, and you’re not stressed?” she shook her head as well. “I don’t buy it.”

“I deal with it in other ways,” he said.

“Like what?” she raised an eyebrow at him.

He tilted his head and stared at her for a minute. “Nothing filthy, princess. My bike keeps me sane.”

Rhiannon nodded her head in understanding. “I get that. You know, my dad taught me about bikes. He used to fix them up and showed me how to build one from scraps when I was a kid.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep.” She nodded again. “But I still did yoga.”

He smiled at that and fell quiet again. Rhiannon looked at him while he stared at his hands. He was being kind, and she knew it was because of what she had said about being scared. She didn’t know if she would ever figure him out but she’d only known him for 24 hours, and she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to.

“Quit staring,” his voice interrupted her musing.

“Sorry,” she said, “I wasn’t… staring, I just… I zoned out for a minute.”

“You should get some more sleep,” he said. “We’ll head back at dawn.”

“You should get some sleep,” Rhiannon countered. “I already took a nap, I’m fine.”  
“I ain’t tired.”  
“Well, neither am I.”  
“Fine.” He fell back into silence, looking so sullen that Rhiannon was almost sure she had just imagined him smiling a few minutes before. How did this keep happening? They were chatting nicely one second, and the next he was snappy and sulky. She realized she actually really wanted him to like her, and not see her as a liability.

“Thank you,” she said, trying to get him talking again. “For earlier.”

“Wasn’t gonna let you become that geeks dinner,” he looked up at her through the hair that was hanging in front of his eyes.

“Still…. Thank you,” she said.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, princess.”

“Ugh, again with the ‘princess!’”

“Why does that bother you so much anyway?” he tilted his head to the other side. “It don’t mean nothin’.”  
“Maybe not to you,” she answered. “It’s just a pet peeve of mine, so could you please not say it?”

“Awright, darlin’” he raised an eyebrow dismissively and reached up to turn the flashlight off, saying something about preserving battery life, so Rhiannon tried to feel her way back to where she was sitting before. She slid her hands along the tile floor, floundering a little in the sudden darkness.

Suddenly she made contact with the heel of Daryl’s boot, and he jumped. “Sorry,” she laughed. “Did I spook ya?”

He just mumbled to her to be careful, and she crawled up and turned to sit next to him.

“I kinda feel tired now,” she admitted.

“Figures,” he said. “Take a nap, darlin’, I’ll wake you if I get tired.”  
Yawning, she leaned and rested her head on his shoulder, fully expecting him to shrug her off, but he didn’t. Instead he scooched down a little so he was at a more comfortable angle for her and let her sleep. She slowly drifted off, happy with the new nickname he had chosen for her.

 

After what felt like five minutes, she felt Daryl’s hand on her arm, shaking her awake.

“Get up,” his voice was quiet and terse.

Great, Rhiannon thought to herself. He’s being a dick again. She reached up to rub her eyes and started to complain but he shushed her again, putting his hand over her mouth. Before she could rip it away, she heard them.

There were voices talking at the front of the store, she couldn’t make out how many but they sounded like men. There was dusty dawn sunlight filtering through some of the windows and she could see Daryl motioning for her to get to her feet, taking his hand off of her mouth and reaching for his crossbow.

Grabbing her packs, Rhiannon slung them over her shoulders, wincing when the cans rattled a little, and following Daryl as he slunk back against the wall and walked lightly in the direction of the voices, keeping low and trying to circle around behind the men.

When they were close to the door Daryl turned to her and put a finger to his lips to shush her again. Rhiannon just shot him back a glare. Did he really think she was gonna start making a ton of noise now?

Daryl turned back to peak around the aisle to see where the men were and how many of them there were. He held up three fingers then tightened his grip on his crossbow. Rhiannon could make out what they were saying by this point, and it was disturbing. Their slow, deep southern voices were talking about a girl they had found and apparently had their way with. She shivered at the sound of one man imitating her screaming, and without thinking, gripped her favorite knife’s handle and pulled it out of the sheath on her waistband. Daryl gave her a look over his shoulder and motioned for her to crouch and follow him. They ducked through the space between the aisle and the register without being seen and crept towards the glass doors.

At the end of the register, there was about twenty feet left to the door. Daryl looked at Rhiannon and mouthed the word “run.” He waved his hand for her to go and she did, trying to stay quiet. She flung the door open and headed directly for Daryl’s bike on the opposite end of the parking lot. She looked behind her to see Daryl barreling out of the door and hot on her heels. She heard a shout and turned again to see the men chasing after them.

“Go!” Daryl yelled, motioning for her to keep running, but over his shoulder she saw the man who was closest pull a gun from his waistband and aim it at them. She stopped and grabbed Daryl by the shoulder and pulled him behind a nearby car, the bullet grazing his arm. Swearing he pulled a gun out of the back of his jeans that Rhiannon hadn’t known he had. He stood up and shot at them over the roof of the car, yelling for her to keep running towards the bike. It was only about fifty feet away at this point so she made a run for it again. She heard gunshots behind her, and more yelling, but she didn’t turn around.

Reaching the bike she threw her leg over it and jammed the key into the ignition. To her right she could see Daryl running again, bleeding from where the bullet had grazed him, and from a second wound on his other shoulder. Rhiannon started the bike up, the engine roaring to life underneath her and waited for Daryl. He was almost there, but the men were closing on him, shooting and missing. A bullet shattered the window of the car behind Rhiannon, but then Daryl was there, jumping on behind her and screaming in her ear for her to go. She did as he said and peeled out of the parking lot, going as fast as the bike would allow, screaming back in the direction of Alexandria.

Daryl’s arm was tight around her waist, gripping the front of her shirt and he was resting his head in between her shoulders. After enough time had passed that Rhiannon felt safe stopping, and they were driving through a town, she pulled into a driveway and turned to look at him.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

He raised his head up and scowled at her. “’M fine,” he mumbled.

Rhiannon rolled her eyes and got off the bike. “Let me look at where you got shot,” she said, grabbing his arms and examining the wounds. The first one was just a graze that had stopped bleeding a while ago, but the second one was a little worse. It had gone straight through the flesh of his arm, below his shoulder but missed the bones. It was still bleeding and needed to be stitched up. When she told him he needed stitches he just yanked his arm out of her grasp.

“Naw,” he said, “let’s jus’ get back.”  
“You’re gonna keep bleeding, just let me stitch it up!”

“Let’s just go.” He repeated.

Ignoring him, Rhiannon rummaged through her backpack for the first aid kit “At least let me clean it up a little, so it doesn’t get infected,” she grumbled, reaching for his arm as she found the disinfectant.

He jerked his arm away again and she gave him an exasperated look. “You’re gonna get an infection!” she repeated, annoyance in every word.

Daryl just glared at her.

“Fine!” she blurted, throwing her hands up and then putting the first aid items back in her pack. She climbed back on the front of the bike and told him “I don’t understand why you have to be so stubborn! You wanna get an infection, fine!” The motorcycle roared back to life. “It’s not even like your arm was clean in the first place and now there’s a friggen bullet hole in it,” she walked the bike backwards out of the driveway they were in, and continued chastising him, “but whatever! You wanna be a giant baby, then that’s your call.”  
Daryl just rested his head between her shoulders again and gripped the front of her shirt while she revved the engine and tore off back to their safe zone.


	5. Chapter 5

They reached the gate of Alexandria before noon. Abraham saw them coming and opened it, so Rhiannon drove right in and stopped the bike inside the walls. Daryl told her to keep going and put it in his garage but she refused, getting off and glaring at him.  
“Do it yourself,” she snapped. “But I suggest you go see the doctor here or somebody unless you really do want your arm to get infected and fall off!”  
“What’s going on?” Abraham asked, having overheard the confrontation.  
“He got shot!” Rhiannon said, gesturing at Daryl’s arm. “And the bull-headed ass won’t let me stitch it up or clean it out, so fine!” she turned to glare at Daryl again, “I’m gonna go find Hadley, and you can take care of your own damn bike because clearly you’re fine and don’t need any help from anyone!” She turned on her heel and stormed off.  
“I saw Maggie with her and Carl by the garden,” Abraham called after her, and she could hear him laughing and berating Daryl, who was burning a hole in the back of her neck with his eyes.

After walking around Alexandria for almost twenty minutes because she had no clue where the garden was that Abraham had mentioned, Rhiannon turned a street corner and saw Rick and Michonne.  
Rick waved to her and she jogged over to them to give them the details of what had happened and why they hadn’t been back last night.  
“You got shot at?” Michonne asked.  
“Yes, we’re fine, but Daryl-“  
“What about Daryl?” Rick interrupted her.  
“He’s got a damn bullet hole in his arm and wouldn’t let me patch him up or clean it out, so-“  
“He what?!” Rick bellowed.  
Rhiannon sighed, irritated at being interrupted again, but before she could respond, Rick was marching towards the direction of the gates, Michonne trailing behind him.  
Turning back to keep going in the direction Rick and Michonne had come from, Rhiannon shifter her focus back to finding Hadley. It took another twenty minutes of wandering the streets of Alexandria before she saw her, playing with Carl and Judith while Maggie and a man who had to be her husband, Glenn, watched over them.   
When she got close enough, Hadley ran over to her, jumping and giving her kisses. The happiness that flooded Rhiannon at being with her only companion again was enough to make her forget, temporarily, about everything that had happened in the past 24 hours.   
She spent the rest of the afternoon with Maggie, Glenn, Carl, and Judith, getting to know them and watching the kids play with Hadley. There was an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she knew it was her reluctance to fully let her guard down warring with her desire to experience a life as close to comfortable as was possible in this New World. As she laughed, really laughed for the first time in years, she hoped that for once, something good could last.  
As the sun started to set, Maggie enlisted Rhiannon’s help to make dinner. More people began to show up and soon Rhiannon knew everyone’s names. Carol and Sasha helped with dinner, and once it was all ready and everyone was sitting down to eat, Daryl snuck in through the front door.  
He gave Rhiannon a dirty look when he saw her and then sighed when he noticed the last empty chair was directly across from her. He slumped into his seat, but his sour demeanor didn’t appear to bother anyone else, so she made the decision to ignore him as well. However she couldn’t help but notice the bandage on his arm where he had been shot, meaning Rick must have convinced him to go see Denise, who Rhiannon had learned was the resident doctor of Alexandria.  
Despite the dirty looks from Daryl, Rhiannon enjoyed herself. She chatted happily with Maggie and Carol, and laughed when she realized Carl was sneaking the food he didn’t want to Hadley under the table. Judith giggled as the dog licked at her sticky fingers.   
Once dinner was finished and all the dishes were washed and put away, everyone moved to Maggie and Glenn’s backyard, where someone had started a fire. Maggie was handing out coffees and hot chocolates, along with blankets.  
“Does anyone have a guitar?” Rhiannon asked as she sat down on a bench between Eugene and Abraham.  
“Naw,” Rick said, “we used to but it got lost.”  
“Along with the only person who knew how to play it,” Carol added, her face somber. Everyone went quiet and Rhiannon felt a stab of guilt. It must have been someone they all knew; someone they loved.   
“I miss music,” she explained.  
“I do too,” Maggie whispered and Rhiannon’s guilt grew like a pit in her stomach.   
“I didn’t mean-“ she started to apologize but Maggie interrupted her.  
“Let’s just talk about something else.” She offered Rhiannon a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and then turned her gaze back to the fire.  
After a few moments of awkward silence, Eugene and Abraham struck up a conversation that Rhiannon didn’t quite follow. Eventually, the mood of the group returned to a light-hearted, jovial one, and Rhiannon slipped away to get another cup of coffee.  
In the kitchen, she wiped away the tears that she had been holding back since Maggie smiled at her. Stupid, she thought to herself. Nothing is casual anymore, everyone has lost someone, stupid, stupid, stupid, she berated herself while pouring coffee into her mug. She turned around to go back outside and jumped at the sight of Daryl standing in the open sliding glass door. Her coffee fell out of her hands from the shock and she continued her mental assault on her own intelligence.  
He stepped inside and slid the door closed behind him. “Ya alright, darlin’” he asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking at her.  
“Yup,” she clipped back, grabbing a rag to clean up her mess. “I see you got your arm patched.”  
“Yup,” he replied, mimicking her tone and sitting on the kitchen counter to watch her work.  
“You come in here for a reason or just to bother me?”  
“I was gonna get a snack, but botherin’ you is more fun.”  
Rhiannon let out an irritated sigh, gingerly picking up the broken glass and throwing it in the trash and asked, “you’re hungry already?”  
“Well,” he drawled, “maybe I just wanted to bug ya, darlin’.”  
Aggravated, Rhiannon ignored him and wiped up the rest of the coffee that was left, and stood up to rinse out the rag. When she didn’t answer him, he became more persistent, pestering her and flicking crumpled up tissues at her.  
“God!” Rhiannon growled, throwing her hands up. “Would-could you- god! Would you just shut up!?” She glared at him. “You can’t do this!”  
He gave her a fake innocent look and said “What?”  
“You can’t hate me one second then act all buddy-buddy the next!”  
“Why not?”  
“Cuz you aggravate the crap out of me!”  
“I know, that’s the fun of it.”  
“Well cut it out, leave me alone.”  
“Come on, princess, I didn’t-“  
“Enough!” she cut him off. “Enough.” Her new coffee was ready so she walked past him to go back outside but turned to face him when she reached the door. “Either be nice to me, or don’t talk to me,” she turned to leave but stopped when he called out for her to wait.  
“Just, c’mere,” he said, beckoning her with a wave of his hand.  
Sliding the door shut again she walked back to where he was sitting and stood in front of him.  
“’M sorry,” he mumbled, reaching out to grab her hand and then pulling his hand back before making contact.  
Rhiannon raised both of her eyebrows at him in a look that said, “Is that all?”  
“I guess I jus’…. ‘M not sure,” he paused, fiddling with a hole in his jeans. “I think I like you but I don’ wan’ to.”  
“You like me?” she repeated.  
“Not like in school yard way, I jus’ mean… You’re tough, ya know? You’re the kind of person we need ‘round here, but I-“  
“You don’t trust me yet,” she finished for him. He nodded and she continued, “I get it. Who says I trust you either?” she playfully whacked him on the knee and said “but you gotta stop being such a dick, Daryl.”  
“Awright, darlin’” he jumped down from the counter and opened the door for her. “These people are my family, tha’s all ‘m sayin’” he finished.  
Rhiannon spent the rest of her night around the fire until it was late and everyone went back to his or her respective houses to sleep. The next day she was assigned to help Maggie growing crops in the garden and spent the week digging, planting seeds, pulling up weeds, and watering the soil. She wasn’t eager to go on another run any time soon, and grew to cherish the safety of the walls. Daryl was furious when Rick told him he couldn’t go on runs either until his arm healed completely, and assigned him to guard duty. From the garden where she worked, she could see him in the tower, watching over her and everyone else in Alexandria, and it made her feel safe. She realized Daryl made her feel safe.

One night after an especially long, hot day working in the fields, she was putting the tools away and heading towards her house when she saw Daryl getting off guard duty.  
He walked up beside her and said “hey, darlin’.”  
“So,” he said, swatting at a fly around his head, “Rick says I can go on a run tomorrow.”  
“Cool! So your arm’s healed?”  
“Sure,” he smirked. “You interested?”  
“In what?”  
“Comin’ wit me. It’s gonna be a longer run, though. We’ll be gone a couple days, at least.”  
“You want me to go on a run with you?” she asked, incredulous. “For a couple days?”  
“Yeah,” he replied, and stopped walking. “Why not? You don’t wanna go?”  
She stopped too and turned to look at him. “Thought you didn’t trust me?”  
“Yeah, well,” he paused and looked her up and down. “You can stay here if you’re scared.” His eyes were sparkling with mischief and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of leaving her behind.  
“I’m not scared!” she retorted, “I’m just not sure I want to spend two whole days with you.”  
“Oh, please, darlin,” he laughed and started to walk again, “you’ve been aching to get jus one minute alone wit me.”  
“Sure,” she scoffed. “You’re so full of yourself,” she said and shoved him on the shoulder, “I’ll see you in the morning.” They had reached the house where she was staying and she went inside with Hadley, whose paws were muddy from helping in the garden.  
When she closed the door she saw Daryl walking in the direction of his house and felt a jolt of excitement. She honestly was excited to spend the next few days with him, but there was no way she was going to admit that to him, or even to herself. Instead she went up to shower and clean off Hadley’s paws.

The next morning, she found Daryl at the front gates standing next to a minivan.  
“You decide to finally listen to me?” she asked when she got close enough.  
“I jus figured I’d let you bring that mutt to stop you having another breakdown,” he shot back, his voice angry but his eyes smiling. “Besides, we’ll need somewhere to sleep.”  
“She’s not a mutt, Daryl. You are,” Rhiannon replied, sliding the door to the backseats open and motioning for Hadley to jump in. She settled on the floor between the two front seats and Rhiannon went around to get in the passenger seat while Daryl jumped in the front and started it up.  
“Never thought I’d see you in a minivan,” she said as they drove out the front gate and started laughing.  
“Shut up,” he growled, but the image of him in the front seat of a minivan was hilarious, as he was covered in sweat, dirty ripped jeans, a sleeveless vest, and a barely healed bullet wound in his left arm.   
“Can we try not to get shot at this time?” she asked when her laughter died down, but he was being sullen.   
“Oh, come on Daryl. Remember our chat about not being a dick anymore?”  
“I ain’t bein a dick,” he grumbled. “I just can’t promise whether or not you’re gonna get shot at.”  
“Well that’s comforting,” she said.  
“Maybe if you keep yappin’ I’ll be the one shootin’ at you,” he said and she heard him laugh quietly.  
The next few hours passed uneventfully. They were heading north along the highway and raided a few strip malls, taking out the Dead but not encountering any people. Most supplies had been looted long ago but they found a gold mine as the sun was setting. An old house sat alone on the top of a hill, down a long driveway that Daryl had turned down on a hunch that had paid off. The fence was padlocked but one swing of his axe and Daryl destroyed it. Inside, the previous owners were roaming around, Dead, and unable to open the doors. There was evidence that they had died in their bed together, and after their death, been trapped inside their house with no one to eat. Rhiannon and Daryl dispatched of the couple with a knife blow to each of their heads.  
The kitchen was completely stocked with food, water, and they had medicine in their bathroom cabinets. The closet in the hall had a rifle and plenty of ammunition. Daryl also found an extra padlock and key and went to lock the front gates again.  
“Might as well hunker here for the night,” he said on his way out the front door.   
When he came back inside, Rhiannon and Hadley were on the couch in the living room, sharing a granola bar.  
“Why you feed that dog people food?” he asked, plopping down next to her.  
“Do you see any kibble around here?” she answered, tearing off a piece of her granola bar and handing it to him.  
He didn’t say anything but took the food.   
“We should get this stuff packed up before dark,” she said, and they did, filling boxes with food and hauling it out the car.  
The sun was all the way down and the stars were shining as they put the last box into the trunk of the minivan.  
“I missed the stars,” she said, craning her head back and trying to find Orion.  
“They ain’t gone nowhere,” Daryl said, closing the trunk and looking up with her.  
“I know, but when do I have time to look at them anymore?”  
“You’re gonna hurt your neck, come on,” he grabbed her arm gently and nudged her back towards the house. She tilted her head back down and looked at him. He was growing on her, and she realized how glad she was to be here, safe with him in this old house, but she was unsure how he felt about her. He’d been nice and playful all day, but she still had the nagging feeling that she was annoying him.   
Inside the house, he was arranging the two couches against the wall so they could sleep with a clear view to the front of the house if anything were to happen.  
“We’re gonna sleep on the couches?” she asked him.  
“Yeah,” he gave her a skeptical look, “I ain’t sleepin in the bed where those two geeks died.”  
“Well yeah, but I think there’s another bed upstairs.”  
“Help yourself, darlin’” he said. “But I’m stayin’ down here.”  
She called Hadley to her and went up to the bedroom she had found while she was searching the house earlier. It must have belonged to their daughter who had moved out. The drawers were empty but there were trophies and pictures hanging on the wall of a girl doing gymnastics. Rhiannon pulled the covers off the bed and that’s when she saw it was crawling with ants.  
She screamed at the sight, and then heard Daryl pounding up the stairs and he barged into the room, his crossbow raised. He lowered it when he saw her standing there with her hand over her mouth.  
“What the hell’s your problem?” he snapped at her.  
She just pointed at the ants and tried not to laugh at the look on his face.  
“Bugs?! You’re screamin’ over bugs?” he glared at her then stormed out of the room and she followed him.  
“Looks like we’re bunkin’ together tonight” she called after him down the stairs, and she heard him let out a sigh of annoyance.  
Tonight was gonna be fun.


	6. Chapter 6

Daryl was snoring, his hand in Hadley’s fur where she was laying on the floor next to him. He had fallen asleep almost instantly, laying his head on the pillow, and telling Rhiannon to get some rest too.  
She had decided to keep watch instead, sitting on the couch, listening to his snoring get louder as his fingers slowly stopped stroking the soft fur behind Hadley’s ears. Once he was asleep, his scowl disappeared, and when his face was relaxed, he was quiet handsome. A familiar feeling tugged at Rhiannon’s heart but she pushed the thought from her mind. She wasn’t developing feelings for Daryl Dixon. He was a brute, and annoying, and cute, but that didn’t matter. She shook her head to try to clear her brain and focus on staying awake and keeping watch but there was a persistent nagging in the background of her thoughts.  
She kept glancing over to him and wanting to brush the hair off his face, so she sat on her hands, chastising herself. There’s no way he’d be into her anyway. He thought she was annoying. Rhiannon kept reminding herself of this until the watch on Daryl’s wrist indicated that it was midnight, his turn to take watch.  
Quietly getting to her feet, she moved close to him and put her hand on his arm, gently shaking him.  
“Daryl,” she whispered, shaking his arm a little harder. “Daryl,” she repeated, louder, when he didn’t wake up. She moved her hand to his shoulder and shook him again. He jerked awake and reached up, grabbing her hand and yanking it away, twisting her wrist painfully as he sat up. Rhiannon cried out, and fell to her knees because of the way he was holding her wrist. Realizing what he was doing, Daryl let go and started to apologize.  
“Did I break it?” he asked frantically. “Shit, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”  
“Don’t worry,” she said, rubbing at her wrist. “It’s not broken.”  
“Why’d you sneak up on me like that?”  
“I wasn’t sneaking,” Rhiannon huffed. “I was just tryin to wake you up so you could take watch but you sleep like a friggin’ truck.” She lifted herself up to sit on the couch next to him and he took her wrist in his hands to expect it.  
“I said it’s fine, Daryl,” but she didn’t pull away.  
“We don’t need to keep watch,” he said, still turning her wrist over and putting pressure in different places with his fingers, checking for breaks. “The gate’s locked, we’d hear if anyone were to come in.” Seemingly satisfied with his inspection, he looked up at her but didn’t let go of her arm. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he locked his eyes with hers and for the first time she noticed how blue they were.  
“I-It’s alright,” she said, taken back by the sincerity in his voice. “You really are a softie, aren’t you, Dixon?”  
He was rubbing his thumb over the sensitive skin of her wrist, still maintaining eye contact. “No, darlin’ I ain’t soft.” His voice was low, and his hair had fallen over his eyes. Rhiannon did what she’d been trying not to do; she reached up with her right hand and brushed the soft hair away from his face. He grabbed it with his free hand, holding both of her wrists now. She looked at them, his thumbs wrapped around her wrists, and back up at him, his blue eyes burning. She opened her mouth to say his name and then he leaned forward, bringing his lips to hers. They were soft, despite being chapped, and his scruffy beard was scratchy on her face but it felt nice. He was kissing her softly. Slowly. He ran his hands up her arms, cradling her head with one and pulling her closer with the other. Rhiannon wrapped hers around his neck, stroking her fingers through his hair and kissing him back. She was surprised by how fervently he was kissing her now, in the dark, quiet room. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into his lap so she was straddling him.  
She ran her hands up and down his chest, breaking the kiss to slide his vest off and started unbuttoning his shirt. She put her hands under the fabric and onto his bare chest, feeling his heart beating and the warmth of his skin.   
He was kissing her neck now, nibbling at the soft flesh, leaving marks with his teeth. She removed his shirt and started kissing his chest and shoulders, softly tracing all the scars she found, leaving kisses on every one. His hands were roaming all over her body, down her ribs and under her shirt, which she yanked off, irritated with the garment for getting in the way. As soon as it was gone he unhooked her bra and tossed it aside.  
It had been ages since Rhiannon had been this close with anyone, skin to skin. He cupped her heavy breasts and kissed them, shifting to lay her on her back on the couch. She tangled her fingers in his hair, moaning at the scrape of his stubble on her sensitive nipples. He came back up to kiss her on the mouth and she groaned his name. He rested his forehead against hers and stopped to take a breath.  
“Rhiannon,” he said, breathing heavily.  
“Yeah?” her fingers were still in his hair, brushing it back from his face.  
“We should stop, right?” he asked, his hand still on her right breast, his thumb rubbing circles around her nipple.  
“Why?” she moaned, kissing him and pulling his bottom lip into her mouth. He groaned and kissed her back before pulling away again.  
“Wait,” he said. “We really shouldn’t.”  
She knew he was right, she could hear herself thinking that he was right, that they should stop now before things got really heavy. But her body was aching for him. She hadn’t been with anyone in years, and he was strong, and made her feel safe. When he ran his hand over her stomach, every nerve in her body cried out for more. She was aching for him in her core, and didn’t really want to listen to reason.  
“If you want us to stop,” she said, hooking two fingers in his belt loops and pulling him closer. “You’ll have to be the one to stop.”  
“I knew from the minute I saw you that you were gonna be the death of me, darlin’” he growled in a low voice, pushing his hips into hers. He leaned down for another kiss but pulled away at the last second. “This isn’t smart,” he whispered.  
“So?” she replied.  
“We shouldn’t.”  
“So?”  
“It’s not a good idea, darlin’.” He was ghosting kisses down her neck, over her breasts, and down her stomach now.  
“You can’t convince me of that, Dixon,” she breathed out. “So you’re gonna have to convince yourself to stop.”  
He groaned, and lowered himself in between her thighs, unbuttoning the top button of her shorts. He sat up on his knees, his hands on the inside of her thighs, his eyes raking her mostly naked body. Rhiannon could see him debating whether to get up or to finish taking off her clothes. After a minute, he pulled her shorts and underwear down and spread her thighs with his hands, trailing kisses from the inside of her knees down to her center. His warm breath on her clit made her moan loud, and soon he was rubbing his tongue along her slit in wide strokes. He slipped a finger into her, teasing her clit with his tongue. His other hand was massaging her breast. He slipped another finger into her, pumping in and out rapidly. He came back up to kiss her on the mouth.  
“You’re soaked, darlin’” he said, kissing her neck some more.  
“Take your pants off, Daryl,” Rhiannon ordered him in between heavy breaths. He did as she said, unbuckling his belt and ridding himself of his jeans. He poised himself at her entrance, rubbing the head of his dick up and down her slick opening before thrusting into her.  
Rhiannon arched her back at the pleasure, grasping at his shoulders and crying out. He buried his face in her neck, wrapping his arms around her to hold her as close as possible before pulling out and thrusting into her again and again. She had never been with anyone as big or as wide as Daryl, and the way he was crashing his hips into hers made her head dizzy. She buried one fist in his hair, and with the other hand she dug her nails into his back.   
He kept fucking her, and then shifted his angle slightly. He was suddenly hitting her in the exact right spot and Rhiannon couldn’t help herself. A high-pitched, breathy groan escaped her, and Daryl reached his hand up to her throat, fingers squeezing lightly as he fucked her. He was grunting, a low, guttural sound in the back of his throat, and his hand around hers made her even wetter.  
“Fuck,” she heard him say, the word spitting out of his mouth. “You’re so wet, darlin’.”  
She rocked her hips against his, her climax building until it washed over her in waves. Her walls tightened around his cock and as soon as she came down he pulled out of her, unable to contain his own release. She pushed him back before he could cum, and took his length into her mouth. He growled and put a hand on the back of her head, pushing her down so the tip of his dick was hitting the back of her throat as he came. When he was finished, she looked up at him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. He had his head tossed back over the arm of the couch, mouth hanging open and his eyes closed. He opened them and looked at her, reaching for her face and pulling her in for a kiss.  
“Mmmm,” he sighed contentedly, kissing her again and again. “I guess I couldn’t stop myself.”  
“Guess not,” she smiled, standing up to look for her clothes that were scattered on the floor around the couch. She tossed him his pants that were lying on top of her shorts, which she promptly pulled on.  
As she bent down to retrieve her bra, she heard Daryl say “knew you were gonna be the death of me, darlin’.”  
“Oh, come on,” she said, standing up and putting her bra back on and then pulling her shirt over her head. “It wasn’t that bad.”  
“It was incredible,” he smirked, standing up to put the cushions from both sofas on the floor, creating a large bed for them to lie on. “That’s the point,” he continued, patting the cushion next to him inviting her to join him. “I’m not gonna be able to quit you any time soon.”  
Rhiannon plopped down next to him with a thump and he rolled his eyes. “It’s time for you to get some rest so I can finally have some peace and quiet,” he drawled, the annoyance creeping back into his southern accent making her grin. Knowing that she could get under his skin as easily as she got under his clothes was satisfying. She drifted off to sleep with her hand across his stomach, running her fingers lightly under the hem of his shirt.


	7. Chapter 7

Content Warning: more smut in this chapter that involves choking and some light dirty talk. Wanted to put a warning in case that made anyone uncomfortable. Also, thanks for the reviews guys :D  
~~~~~~

Dawn sunlight crept in through the windows of the living room in the abandoned house. Rhiannon had been awake for a while now, and she watched the light move across Daryl’s face, his hair and cheekbones casting long, angular shadows. Hadley was sprawled across their feet at the end of their makeshift bed of cushions and pillows. There was an urge in Rhiannon’s chest to stay there for the rest of the day, with the two of them.  
As the sunlight grew brighter, Daryl stirred awake. He rubbed at his eyes and looked at her.  
“You watchin’ me sleep?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.  
“No,” she lied.  
“Tha’s creepy,” he said, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes some more. “We better get a move on if we wanna find anythin’ else today. We’ll head back home tomorrow.”  
“Do we have to leave right now?” she asked, rubbing a hand down his back and tugging on his shirt. He looked over his shoulder at her skeptically.  
“You serious?”   
Rhiannon wiggled her eyebrows at him and pulled her shirt over her head as an answer, tossing it at him. It landed on his shoulder.  
“Now,” she continued. “Are you gonna come take the rest of my clothes off or am I gonna have to do it?”  
A low growl came from his throat as he crawled back to hover over her, leaning in to kiss her on the lips. “You better behave, darlin’” he said, moving to nibble at the soft skin on her neck.  
“Or what?” she teased, wrapping her legs around his waist and sliding her hands up the front of his shirt. His abs were firm, tight, and she unbuttoned his shirt enthusiastically, tearing away the fabric and pulling him close so they were chest to chest. Her arms snaked behind him and up his back, tugging on his shoulders, trying to pull him even closer.   
Daryl was still busy kissing her neck, biting and leaving marks trailing from her jaw to her shoulder. He had one hand in her hair, twirling strands around his fingers and mumbling something under his breath.  
“What’s that?” she asked.  
“I said if you don’t behave I’ll have to make you, princess.”  
Rhiannon’s breath caught in her throat and she pushed on his shoulders so she could look him in the eye. He started to apologize for calling her ‘princess’ but she interrupted him.   
“Is that a threat? Or a promise?” she raised an eyebrow at him and started to unbuckle his belt.  
A sinful grin broke out on Daryl’s face and he reached behind Rhiannon to unhook her bra. When her breasts were free he ducked his head down to kiss them, pulling one of her nipples in between his teeth and sucking on it, kneading the other breast with his hand. She let out a small gasp of pain and he stopped, looking up at her.  
She looked down at him and nodded for him to keep going. “It’s okay,” she said, “I like it.”  
He smiled again and kept going, leaving love bites all around her breasts and then moving down over her stomach. Her torso was beginning to look like a road map, with Daryl laying claim to all of his favorite landmarks.  
He slowed when he reached the waistband of her shorts, using his tongue and leaving sloppy kisses between her hips. Rhiannon was getting impatient and reached to pull her shorts off by herself, but he stopped her, grabbing her wrists and yanking them above her head.  
“I told ya to behave,” his voice was low, his gaze steady as he glared into her eyes. “Now, are ya gonna be a good girl?”  
Rhiannon looked up at him, anticipation pooling in her core, and nodded.  
“Good,” he purred, kissing her on the forehead. “Now, don’t move.” He leaned back to sit on his knees, tugging her shorts off but leaving her panties on. He slid his rough hands down the inside of her thighs, slipping one finger under the fabric between her legs, sliding it up and down her entrance and rubbing small circles around her clit.  
She started to moan but he reached up with his other hand and shushed her, putting a finger over her mouth. “Hush, now, darlin’” he crooned, wrapping his hand around her throat and squeezing gently. Rhiannon loved it, and groaned a little so he would squeeze tighter, which he did. She lifted her hips up and pushed them against his hand, hoping for more. He gave her what she wanted, hooking his fingers around the fabric and pulling at it until it tore away from her skin. He discarded the ripped panties off to the side and went back to work, sliding one finger inside of her and curving it forward. Her back arched off the pillows and she stifled a moan.  
“Good girl,” Daryl said, biting his lip and slipping another finger inside her, pumping in and out. Rhiannon’s mouth opened but she didn’t make a sound.  
He kept working her with his fingers and then leaned down to use run his tongue over her clit, licking circles around the sensitive nub. Soon, she felt her climax coming, building every time he shoved his fingers inside her. They were slamming against her g spot and before she knew it her orgasm hit her. She closed her eyes and couldn’t hold back her moans anymore. Her legs were shaking and she felt herself dripping with pleasure.  
When she fluttered her eyes open she saw Daryl looking down at her. His hand had left her throat and he was pulling his jeans down. His dick popped out over the waistband of his underwear, and he took it in his hand, rubbing it up and down his length. Before she could say anything, he flipped Rhiannon over onto her front, lifting her onto her knees and thrusting into her, stretching her walls delightfully. He had one hand on her hip for balance when he thrust in and out of her, and when she cried out, he grabbed her throat with the other hand and yanked her up so her back arched and her head was next to his.  
“How many times I gotta tell you to keep it quiet?” he growled, gripping her throat tight enough to cut off her breathing while he still slammed his hips against hers, fucking her mercilessly. Just as she was about to pass out from lack of oxygen, he let go. She gasped for air and reached up, grasping at his hair. Daryl slid his hands down her body, groping her breasts and thumbing her clit, bring her back to the edge of orgasm.  
“Daryl,” she moaned, turning her head to the side and kissing the side of his face. His dick was still pounding into her and she fell forward onto her hands and knees, grinding her hips back against his. She heard him grunting every time he thrust into her, and she came again, making her knees weak. As her walls tightened around him, he felt his climax coming. He pulled out and finished with his hand, warm liquid shooting onto her back.  
As he came down he reached out and grabbed her arms, pulling her up and turning her to face him. He kissed her fervently, feverishly, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her to him tight. She kissed him back, her hands on his neck. In his arms, Rhiannon felt safer than she had in years, and his lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth, made her feel warm, and wanted.  
“I’m gonna be sore,” she said when he broke the kiss.  
“Sorry ‘bout that, darlin’” he said, kissing her again. “But we really oughta be goin’ now.”  
“You’re right,” she said, nodding.

Once they were dressed, Rhiannon went to find Hadley. She had wandered off earlier when they had started getting noisy and physical, and Rhiannon found her sleeping on the kitchen floor.   
“Come on, girl,” she whistled at her and Hadley jumped up and followed her out to the car, where Daryl was waiting for him. Rhiannon got in the passenger seat and looked at him. “Good thing we didn’t bring your bike,” she laughed. Her thighs were tender and ached and she knew she wouldn’t have been able to straddle a motorcycle.  
“Sorry, again,” he said, putting a hand on her thigh. She closed the door as Hadley jumped in, and then they were off.


	8. Chapter 8

As they drove through the abandoned suburbs and ransacked towns, Rhiannon, Daryl, and Hadley didn’t have any luck finding more supplies. One house had a few rolls of toilet paper, another some toothpaste, but that was about it. Some time in the mid-afternoon, Daryl decided they should head back.  
“I say we hit that mall I saw signs for up ahead and then we go home.”  
Rhiannon agreed as she got in the minivan. They had just finished canvassing another neighborhood with nothing more than a few flashlights. The trunk and back seats of their vehicle were full of boxes from the house they had stayed in, so she wasn’t worried about going home empty handed, but she knew Daryl wanted to try to find as much as possible before returning to Alexandria.  
Hadley rested her head in Rhiannon’s lap as Daryl started the engine. She ran a hand over her soft fur, petting her head and scratching behind the dog’s ear. Hadley sighed contently.

When they took the exit off the highway to get to the mall, Daryl cried out with frustration. Rhiannon hadn’t been paying attention and looked up to see what he was mad about.  
“Goddamn place is burnt to the groun’” he said, hitting the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.   
It was true. It must have happened recently because there was still black smoke eking out of a few of the piles of wood that were the only remnants of the building. There were a few cars in the parking lot, coated in ashes. Daryl stopped the van in front of what looked to be an old Target. Rhiannon looked over at him and saw how disappointed he was.  
“It’s okay,” she said, reaching a hand over to rest on his leg. “We have plenty of supplies alre-“  
“Nawh!” he cut her off, hitting the steering wheel again and getting out to pace and kick at the debris littering the parking lot. He was swearing and throwing things.  
Rhiannon debated whether or not to stay in the car or to follow him. After a minute she got out and walked over to wear he was kicking at a burnt window frame.  
“Daryl?” she said, cautiously approaching him and putting a hand on his back, between his shoulder blades.  
He didn’t answer her and flinched slightly at her touch.  
“Daryl,” she repeated, putting her other hand on his bicep, “we have plenty of food and stuff. What’s this about?”   
He took a deep breath and sighed. “It’s nothin’, jus’….” He trailed off and turned to face her. “It’s nothin’, don’ worry ‘bout it. Le’s jus’ go,” he gestured towards the minivan but when he looked up over Rhiannon’s shoulder, his sad face transformed into one of anger and malice. Rhiannon looked behind her to see the same men they had run from the first time she had gone on a run with Daryl.  
They were standing between them and the van, two were holding rifles aimed at them, and the one in front had an automatic weapon held loosely at his waist.  
“Well, look, fellas,” he said, talking to the men behind him. “We found us our lovebirds.”  
Daryl shoved Rhiannon behind him, standing protectively in front of her. “Don’ know wha’ you wan’,” he said, his southern drawl more obvious as he lowered his voice, “but e’rythin’ here’s been burn’, so migh’ as well keep movin’.”  
Rhiannon watched from behind Daryl’s bicep, one hand tight around the handle of the knife in her waistband.  
“That don’t matter to us,” the man was saying. “We don’t give a rat’s ass about this mall, cuz we see you got all the supplies we need in that shitty little van of yours. So we’ll be taking that, and your pretty little girlfriend too.” A smirk spread across his face, which was scarred and tan, a patchy beard sprouting out of the unscarred places.  
Daryl tightened his grip on Rhiannon’s waist and said, “like hell.”  
Rhiannon pulled a second knife out of the sheath on her thigh and pressed it into Daryl’s right hand. While the man started to laugh, he launched it through the air and it landed right between his eyes, sinking through his skull and into his brain, killing him. The men behind him lowered their rifles from surprise, and that’s when Rhiannon threw her knife. She hit the man on the left in the throat while Daryl charged at the remaining man. He raised his rifle but not in time. A shot was fired but Daryl was already there, tackling him to the ground and punching him in the face until it was all bloody and broken. Soon he wasn’t breathing but Daryl continued to assault him. His knuckles were bleeding and he sat back, catching his breath.  
“Daryl!” Rhiannon had been calling his name but he hadn’t heard her until now. He turned to see her on the ground, her hands pressed against her thigh and blood pouring out through her fingers.  
“Shit!” he swore, running over to her. “He shot you?” Daryl’s face twisted with anger and he went back to where the man lay, with his face bloodied, not breathing. He picked up the rifle that he had dropped and shot him in the head.  
“Daryl!” Rhiannon cried, “That’s not going to help, you’re just gonna attract more Dead Ones!” The pain in her leg was insane. The bullet must have hit her bone or something because it hadn’t come out the other side. Blood was still seeping from the wound and her vision was starting to blur around the edges. Daryl came back, ripping a strip of fabric from his shirt and tying it around her leg. When he pulled the knot tight, more pain shot through Rhiannon. He lifted her to carry her to the van but she passed out before they got there.

 

Her head was groggy and her thigh was aching as Rhiannon slowly blinked her eyes open. She was lying on a bed in a small room lit by a lamp on the nightstand beside the bed. As the room came into focus, she saw a girl standing over her, changing the bandage wrapped around her thigh.   
She tried to ask, “who are you?” but her voice was hoarse and the words came out as a croak. She cleared her throat and tried to speak again but the girl handed her a glass of water, and shushed her gently.  
“It’s okay,” she smiled. “I’m Denise, I got the bullet out of your leg.”  
“Thanks,” Rhiannon gave a weak laugh after taking a sip of water. “How long was I asleep?”  
“Well,” she said, sitting on the side of the bed, “Daryl came screaming through the gate yesterday afternoon and you were passed out then. You woke up a little when I started to dig the bullet out but I gave you something to put you back to sleep and you’ve been out since then. So, like, a day. You lost a lot of blood, too, but I’m a universal donor so we gave you a transfusion. You’ll feel groggy for a little bit, and you’re gonna need to stay off your leg for a while, but you’ll be fine.” Denise had a nice smile, it made Rhiannon feel better about waking up with a stranger standing over her.  
“What about Daryl? And Hadley? Are they okay?”  
“Oh, yeah,” she said, laughing. “Hadley’s been Judith’s new best friend all day, and Daryl’s been…. Well, he’s been Daryl.” She laughed again. “He keeps barging in here asking me when I’m gonna wake you up.”  
“Where is he now?” Rhiannon asked, smiling at the thought of Daryl worrying over her.  
“I think he’s with Rick,” she replied, “He was hanging around here until about an hour ago when Rick came in and told him he needed help with something. I didn’t pay attention,” she offered another warm smile.  
Rhiannon finished the water in the glass and as soon as she did, her stomach made a loud, gurgling noise. “I must be hungry,” she said sheepishly.  
“I’ll go get you something to eat,” Denise said, checking the bandages again and walking out of the room.  
She came back a few minutes later with a tray of food and Hadley by her side. “Look who I found!” she sang.  
Hadley jumped up on the bed and kissed Rhiannon’s face before settling down against her, her tail by Rhiannon’s feet and her head on her belly. Denise set the tray down next to her and Rhiannon saw the soup and sandwich, making her stomach growl again.  
She ate slowly and Denise stayed and talked with her while she did. Her laughter was infectious and Rhiannon was starting to feel better. Soon, she was finished with her food.  
“I’ll let you get some more rest,” Denise said, taking the tray.  
“Thanks,” she replied. “Oh, and if you see Daryl, can you tell him to come see me? Please!” she added quickly when she saw the look on Denise’s face. “Tell him to wake me, I want to see him.”  
Denise rolled her eyes and reluctantly promised to send him in if she saw him. Before she left she crossed to the other side of the bed to turn the lamp off. Once she did, Rhiannon settled back into the bed, drawing the covers up to her chin. Hadley cuddled in close to her. With one arm around her best friend, Rhiannon drifted easily back into sleep.

What seemed like ten minutes later, Daryl was shaking her softly. His hand on her shoulder was gently bringing her out of sleep.  
“Hey,” he was saying softly.  
“Hey,” she mumbled back, lifting a hand to rub her eyes. She opened them to see his face above hers in the dark. She couldn’t make out his expression but his voice sounded relieved.  
“You doin’ okay, darlin’?” he asked, kneeling on the bed to her right. He was leaning over her, his right arm across her body, supporting his weight, and his left hand on her shoulder.  
Rhiannon nodded and reached to turn on the lamp. The soft light illuminated his face, still streaked with blood, sweat, and dirt. “Ew,” she said, smirking at him.  
“Shut up,” he replied, punching her lightly on the shoulder.  
“Maybe I should turn the light off again,” Rhiannon teased, sticking her tongue out at him.  
“Stop,” he said, looking down at her with his blue eyes, which were brightly reflecting the light of the lamp. They stood out among the rest of his dark features and grimy face. Even with all the built up dirt, he was still handsome. Rhiannon snaked an arm up his chest and to his neck, pulling him down for a kiss.  
He pressed his lips to hers and then leaned back again. “Denise said you’re gonna be alright.”  
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Thanks to you, my hero,” she drawled sarcastically, poking at his chest.  
“Stop,” he said, slapping at her hand. “Rhiannon, you’re bad luck.”  
“Oh come on,” she sat up a little. “What do you mean?”  
“I mean,” he drew out the word to add emphasis, “that every time I go on a run with you we run into trouble.”  
“But it was just those guys and they’re dead now, so-“  
“I’m just sayin once you’re healed I want you inside these walls, where-“  
“What?! No, Daryl, there’s no way-“  
“I’m jus’ sayin’-“  
“You’re trying to tell me where I can go and when and I-“  
“No! That’s not what I’m sayin’, I’m sayin-“  
She cut him off again and they spent the next several minutes talking over each other. Having sat up all the way she could wave her arms around to emphasize her point, and Daryl kept interrupting her, which made her more frustrated.  
“Daryl!” she cried out after a while, silencing him for a moment, until he said:  
“I jus’ wan’ you safe, darlin’”  
“My ass!” Rhiannon said swatting away the hand he put on her cheek. “I’m not Judith! I’m not a child! I survived perfectly fine on my own before you!” her voice cracked slightly and her cheeks flamed with embarrassment. She wasn’t about to let Daryl see her cry; it would just make him feel more righteous in trying to tell her to stay inside Alexandria. “Get out.” She snapped.  
“Rhiannon-“  
“Just go away,” she said, annoyance in her voice. “I’ll see you tomorrow when you’ve come to your senses and realized you don’t own me and you don’t get to tell me what I’m gonna do.”  
He tried to speak a few more times but she just cut him off, putting a finger over his lips and shushing him. He sighed, frustrated, and she grabbed him by the collar of his button up shirt, pulling him in for a kiss and then sending him away. He gave her one last angry glare before storming towards the door and leaving in a huff.


	9. Chapter 9

Daryl didn’t come back the next morning to see Rhiannon. She figured he was still pissed at her or whatever, so she focused on working with Denise on getting her strength back. She wanted to walk.  
As soon as she tried, she fell back on the bed. Denise chastised her for trying to push herself too hard too soon, but Rhiannon was adamant that she at least be able to stand on her own.  
“Don’t you have any damn crutches?!” she snapped at her when she stumbled for the fourth time. “I’m not gonna be sitting and hopping around til my leg gets better!”  
Denise rolled her eyes at her. “Of course we do but I wanted you to get more rest before hobbling out the front gates on your crutches!”  
“Why would I go out there?”  
“Cuz Daryl-“  
“Daryl what?!”  
Denise blanched as she realized she said something she probably shouldn’t have. “Nothing,” she said quickly, trying fix her mistake.  
Rhiannon sighed and sat back down on the bed, “just tell me what he did.”  
“He…….. left,” Denise said slowly, dragging out her ‘e’s.’  
Rolling her eyes, Rhiannon held out her hands to Denise and said “get me the crutches. I’m not gonna go chase him down, I just want to get out of this room.” She meant it. She didn’t have any desire to run after Daryl if he wanted to be a drama queen. “I promise!” she cried adamantly when Denise gave her a hesitant look.

Rhiannon had broken a leg before the world ended, so she knew how to get around on crutches. Stairs were easy and she made her way out of the house where Denise treated people, and over to the one where she had been staying. Maggie was in her kitchen.  
“What’s up?” Rhiannon asked her.  
“Oh!” she said, surprised. “Hi! I didn’t know you’d be back so soon, I was leavin’ you some food for when you got better,” her warm smile split across her face. It was about midday so she stayed to have lunch and Rhiannon ended up chatting away the whole afternoon with her.  
Apparently Daryl had heard of a store a hundred miles out that the others had never gotten to, and he took off in the morning to go check it out.  
“Don’t know why he was in such a hurry, though,” Maggie said. Rhiannon told her about the conversation she’d had with Daryl the night before.  
“Ahhh,” Maggie nodded. “Makes sense.”

Rhiannon couldn’t help in the garden while she was on crutches so the next day she just sat in the fields with Hadley, Judith, and Maggie.   
“I never got this much rest before this place,” she joked. “It’s so nice!” she was bouncing Judith on her good knee and trying not to show how much pain her other leg was in. She was lucky that the bullet had gone in through the front of her thigh at an angle and out the side, without hitting her femur or the artery on the inside of her thigh. It was still very painful though, even with crutches, her leg was tired and aching.  
Judith’s babbling was a nice distraction though. At least it was until she heard the rumble of Daryl’s bike approaching the front gate. Rhiannon looked up to see him ride through and her mouth hung open when she saw he wasn’t alone. A tall, redheaded woman was sitting on the back of his bike, her arms around his waist, laughing as he came to a stop. She felt Maggie’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t look away from Daryl propping his bike on its kickstand, shutting it off, and standing to walk with her. She couldn’t make out his face but she could hear the woman laughing as they walked towards Rick’s house.   
Indignant and angrier than she ever remembered being, Rhiannon closed her gaping mouth and turned her attention back to the baby in her lap and the dog by her side.  
“Rhi,” Maggie started to say.  
“Nope,” she cut her off, shaking her head. “Not today, Maggie! Not today!” her fist was shaking from the rage blossoming around her heart but she stuffed it away, pretending she hadn’t just seen what she saw. She made a silly face at Judith instead, focusing on the child’s smiling expression, and the pain in her thigh, rather than the pain in her chest.

But as hard as she tried to ignore it, the pain followed her around all day. It was stupid, she knew, for her to be so insanely jealous over one interaction she witnessed from a distance. Especially when she’d know Daryl for less than two weeks, but she felt safe with him. The thought of losing him already was like losing the only safety she’d known in years. Her imagination was running wild, but her stubborn streak prevented her from finding him and talking to him.  
If he wants to hang out with her, she thought to herself, he can do whatever he wants.  
Rhiannon was getting her dinner out of the fridge to heat up. It was some spaghetti dish that Maggie had prepared for her, and she was putting it in the microwave when Daryl came crashing through her door, and slamming his crossbow down on the counter.  
“What the hell?!” he roared, stomping over to stand in front of her.  
“Excuse you?” she asked, going to take a step back but stumbling on her crutches. Pain shot up her thigh and she grabbed the counter for balance.  
“I went to see you and Denise said you’d up and left yesterday?” his face was angry, his dark eyes staring right into hers. “You’re supposed to be getting’ rest!”  
Rhiannon rolled her eyes at him and went back to making her dinner. “I told you already, Daryl Dixon, you aren’t in charge of what I do.”  
He huffed an irritated breath and grabbed her waist, lifting her to sit on the counter, standing between her legs. “I ain’t tryin’ ta tell you what to do,” he growled. “I’m tryin’ ta tell you what the doctor said was good for you.”  
“I know what’s good for me,” she retorted.  
“Clearly you don’t, hobblin’ around like you din’t jus’ get shot!”  
“That’s hilarious, Daryl. Considering you wouldn’t even let me sew you up when you got shot!”  
“That was different,” he said, snaking an arm around her waist and pressing into her.  
“No,” she said, pushing against his chest until he took a few steps back. “I’m hungry, so you can leave me alone.”  
Hurt showed in his face, but he didn’t say anything.  
“Besides,” Rhiannon continued, “don’t you have some new recruit to help get settled in?” She tried to keep her tone cool and teasing, but she could hear the whine in her voice.  
“What are you talkin’ about?” He raised an eyebrow and leveled his stare at her.  
“I saw you come back,” she said. “I was in the fields with Maggie and I saw you ride in with that lady on your back.”  
Daryl’s eyebrows knotted together in the middle of his forehead and his worried expression changed to annoyance. “Jenny?”   
“How do you expect me to know her name?” Rhiannon snapped.  
“I don’ know, you seem to know everythin’ else, right?!” he snapped right back.  
“Ugh!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. Her leg was aching and she didn’t know how to tell him she knew she was being irrational without apologizing, which she didn’t want to do. So, instead of owning up to her feelings she just clamped her mouth shut and glared at him.  
“Fine, darlin’!” he said, glaring back at her. “I’m gone,” and he was. He grabbed his crossbow off the counter and left. 

 

Rhiannon spent the rest of that night sulking. There was nothing to do and she wasn’t feeling like going to sleep so she settled on sitting on the swing on her front porch, with Hadley by her side. They were swinging softly, her good leg pushing them back and forth and her hand gently stroking Hadley’s fur.  
The night air was cool, and the breeze was welcome after the heat of the day. Stars were twinkling in the sky and Rhiannon took up the task of trying to identify her favorite constellations again. She was almost sure she’d found the tree stars of Orion’s Belt when she heard a grating sound from the road.  
Jenny, the redhead from before, was walking with Daryl. He was wearing his sleeveless button up under his best with the angel wings, and his biceps were defined in the moonlight. He had his hands in his front pockets and she kept putting her hand on his shoulders and bicep every time she laughed, which was after every thing he said.   
They got to Rhiannon’s house and came up the porch steps, apparently unaware that she was sitting on the swing. Daryl raised a hand to knock on the door but stopped when she cleared her throat, getting his attention.   
Daryl and Jenny both turned to look at her, surprised.  
“Oh, hey, darlin’,” he said, all previous annoyance gone from his voice. He sauntered over to her, standing next to the swing. Rhiannon knew she could move and make room for the both of them to sit down, but she stubbornly stayed in her place, stretching out with Hadley to take up the whole swing.  
“I wanted to introduce you to Jenny here,” he gestured behind him. She was standing sheepishly with her arms crossed on her waist. She smiled and waved at Rhiannon.  
“Hey there!” she said in a chirpy voice.  
“Hi,” Rhiannon tried not to be cold.  
“I found her on my way back today,” Daryl was saying. “She’d only been on her own for a little while…” he trailed off, gesturing to Jenny to come forward and finish the story.  
“I, uh…” she started, taking a few uneasy steps closer to Rhiannon. “I was with a group, but we were attacked.”   
“By the Dead?” Rhiannon asked.  
“Uh, no,” she shook her head and her red curls bounced back and forth. She was very pretty which irked Rhiannon. Jenny kept talking, but her voice was shaking. “There were these three guys. They, uh, came into our camp but I managed to get away. No one else did.” Her voice lowered to a whisper and a tear fell down her cheek and all the nasty feelings Rhiannon had had towards her dissipated.   
“I’m sorry,” Rhiannon offered.  
Jenny gave her a small smile and waved a hand dismissively. “Daryl found me hiding in the same spot I ran to when they attacked us. I was too scared to move for two days.” She placed a hand on Daryl’s shoulder again, smiling at him, and Rhiannon had to swallow more jealousy.  
She decided to kick Hadley off and swing her leg over so there would be more room for them, but she moved too fast and a sharp pain caused her to gasp. Daryl shrugged off Jenny’s hand and knelt in front of Rhiannon, his hands hovering over her.  
“You alrigh’, darlin’?” he asked, concerned.  
“Yeah,” Rhiannon winced, moving slower and putting both feet on the porch. Daryl’s hands were on her thigh, below the bandage and he was looking up at her. “I’m alright,” she reassured him. She could tell he wanted to berate her for not being in bed, resting, and she was grateful that he was keeping quiet, so she figured she’d be nice to him. “Maybe I just need to get some more rest.”  
“Tha’s a good idea,” he said, getting her crutches and handing them to her.  
“Well, I’ll be goin’ home, then,” Jenny said. “I hope you feel better soon, Rhiannon.”  
“It was nice to meet you!” Rhiannon said, and she meant it.   
“You too,” Jenny smiled at her. “Daryl, do you wanna walk me home?” she asked, putting her hand back on his shoulder.  
“Naw,” he grumbled, helping Rhiannon to her feet. “I’m gonna make sure she gets to her room alright. You’re jus’ down the street anyway,” he brushed her off.  
Rhiannon felt guilty pleasure at the disappointed look on Jenny’s face. They might have had similar experiences outside of these walls, but inside of them, Daryl was hers.


End file.
